Some twenty years ago, I visited my grandparents during the school holidays. What I remember of that day was of something important about to happen. And it did happen, in the small room of a typical Soviet two-room apartment. Grandma invited me into the room, took a key, and unlocked the only drawer with a lock. A simple paper box lay there preserving treasures from the interwar period: the coat of arms, the three-coloured flag, the national anthem, few coins, and a map. The first four items were proof of Lithuanian independent statehood, but the map featured the Grand Duchy of Lithuania “from sea to sea.” That evening I read History of Lithuania, compiled by Adolfas Љapoka and published in 1936^[1] and, of course, banned in those days.
I begin with this autobiographical sketch about my “introduction” to Lithuanianess because of the tokens of memory that the story displays so vividly and because roots of these tokens go far beyond the interwar period. Skipping the first attributes of the Lithuanian Republic, let me concentrate on the last one, the map. As said, this map featured the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the early fifteenth century. This period has been generally understood as Lithuania’s golden age, the peak of the country’s glory and power: territories extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea and Vytautas/Vitovt (1392-1430) holding the grand ducal seat. As it happens, the golden age is a lost age. This statement holds true in regard to Lithuanian consciousness as well. Historical research can hardly prove an existence of Lithuanian imperial policy. Even though the title of Stephen C. Rowell’s book indicates that Lithuania was a “pagan empire,”^[2] neither his study, nor any other historical study has succeeded in tracing Lithuanian imperialism. As to the attempts, perhaps Josef Pfitzner’s monograph on Vytautas maintains this imperial claim and even labels the grand duke’s government as absolutism.^[3] However, all these concepts expose an understanding of the 1930s rather than the fifteenth century.
Hence, a natural question arises about the purpose of this essay. I think the reason lies in the associative nature of human thought. By definition, empires occupy vast territories inhabited by various peoples. Territorial expansion is a characteristic feature of medieval and, to some extent, of early modern Lithuania. Thus, one may legitimately probe questions of Lithuanian imperialism. However, the second part of the same definition holds that an empire is sustained by an imperial policy implemented throughout an entire space (whether over land or sea), thus subjecting people and their territories to an emperor. It is my conviction that Lithuania never developed an imperial policy and never was an empire. The failure in imperial thought resulted in a kind of nostalgia for empire that never existed but perhaps could have. Based on examples from the early modern period I shall try to show the deep roots of this nostalgia.
From the late fifteenth century, Lithuania started losing vast Slavic lands at nearly the same speed that she acquired them. The sixteenth century witnessed especially grave losses in territory, and the literature of this time can be distinguished for a kind of topographical memory. In 1550, Michalonus Lithuanus (later identified as Venclovas Mikalonis, (ca. 1490-1560)) addressed Sigismund Augustus (1544-1572) with a treatise concerned with government and traditions. This text is known only from ten fragments published in Basel in 1615 under the title of De moribus Moschorum, Tartarorum et Lithuanorum.^[4] This text praises the customs of Muscovites and Tatars and contrasts them to the habits of Lithuanians. Michalonus reproaches Lithuania for having abandoned traditions of the past and lists traces of Lithuanian power in Muscovite territories and the steppes beyond. There, the author says one may still find hills and valleys, roads and bridges, buildings and strongholds bearing the names of Gediminas/Gedimin (1314-1341) and Vytautas.^[5]
Long and exhausting wars over the Livonian lands (1558-1583) made territorial losses more apparent and hence more painful. Many authors of that time discuss warfare and rejoice over Lithuanian victories. Wartime highlighted certain periods of the past, and sixteenth-century Lithuania found the promise of victory in the deeds of Grand Duke Vytautas. It was him who appeared in soldiers’ dreams and predicted success on the battlefield.^[6] Place names preserved his footsteps, which soldiers were to follow deep into Muscovite territory. Certain buildings and cities reminded Lithuanian soldiers of the grand duke and inspired them to re-establish territorial justice. Among all such episodes the story of the town of Porkhov is the best known. In 1581, the Lithuanian army, led by Christopher Radvila/Radziwiłł the Thunderer (1547/48-1603), reached this town. Radvila forbade his troops to invade the town, which he thought was founded by Vytautas, and rejoiced at following the grand duke’s path.^[7] Interestingly enough, Russian historical memory preserves Vytautas’ visit to Porkhov in a saying “Yagnova pushka svoikh pobivaet” (noting the gun-master’s death at the explosion of a cannon).^[8]
The success in the Livonian wars has been interpreted as a just restitution of territories. On 3 November 1580, the city of Vilnius greeted a victorious Stefan Bathory (1576-1586). The king was glorified not only for defending his country but also for returning back its distant lands. Indeed, one performance was held during which children dressed in Muscovite clothing begged the triumphant king for mercy. This “show” took place by the triumphal arch, featuring figures of Vytautas and his cousin King Jogaila/Yagailo on its top.^[9] The early modern theatre of the state not only displayed the gains of the victory but also associated these lands with their subjects and hinted that Bathory’s victory was a return to historical justice.
The beginning of the seventeenth century was a rather successful period for Lithuania. In 1611, the capitalize duchy’s army recaptured Smolensk and the feeling of domains returning back to their owners must have been widespread in the country. It was then when Nicholas Christopher Radvila the Orphan (1549-1616) commissioned the map of the grand duchy. This thorough, informative, and for that time highly advanced map was printed in Amsterdam in 1613. The entire enterprise was meant to demonstrate the vastness of Lithuania’s lands. Indeed, in 1613 the country still occupied quite extensive territories. Yet, the map had one particular addition – the layout of the Dnepr River was given separately. The accompanying legend mentioned the motive for this: the Dnepr was there to indicate the country’s boundaries under Vytautas.^[10] Moreover, the map itself featured places bearing or referring to the grand duke’s name.
These and alike references to places, buildings, and even natural objects are associated with the golden age of an empire never built and by then lost for ever. Witnessing gradually shrinking boundaries, and feeling the appeal of distant sites bearing traces of or associations with the deeds of the rulers of the past, the citizens of the grand duchy sank into a kind of historical nostalgia. In Christian thought this feeling can be compared to that of paradise lost. In the Lithuanian case, this paradise had much more mundane expressions, associated with military might and territorial expansion. With time, the entire motif has been abbreviated to the well-known formula “from sea to sea.” In such concentrated form, this historical nostalgia has survived until today and the imperial theme still arouses curiosity. Even though a Lithuanian Empire has never entered history, it has survived in memory as a desirable and almost tangible motif frequently displayed on maps and heard in songs. It has survived in the form of multiple memorabilia and perhaps is even echoed in the words from the Lithuanian national anthem: “From the past let your sons draw their strength.”
Returning to the sketch at the beginning of this essay, I would like to once again look at the tokens of Lithuanian statehood that my grandparents laboriously preserved. Any historian would immediately note the obvious inconsistency of the items in the box and this is a historically correct observation. However, patriotic memory does not care for historic precision. Surprisingly, the memorial strategies of Lithuanian citizens have outlived not only the empire that never existed, but also the periods of lost statehood.